


Frozen

by INMH



Series: trope-bingo Fanfiction Fills 2017 (2nd Quarter) [9]
Category: The Order: 1886
Genre: Angst, Drama, During Canon, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Jealousy, Love Triangles, One-Sided Attraction, Sexual Content, Strong Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-12-10 20:16:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11699151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/INMH/pseuds/INMH
Summary: Isabeau sees Grayson and Lakshmi together and draws conclusions.





	Frozen

**Author's Note:**

> IDK man it looks like they’re setting this up as a love triangle.

It can’t be what it looks like.  
  
Grayson is not Lafayette. He does not cavort. He does not flirt. He does not make eyes at women on the street.  
  
And so at first blush, it makes virtually no sense that he should be leaving a _brothel_ with an attractive woman, dressed only in his shirt and pants, stripped of his uniform but not of his weapons.  
  
Then Isabeau realizes that the woman is armed too. And her clothing suggests a fighter, and that brothel has been flagged as a place known to be frequented by Rebels, and it all clicks: The woman is a member of the Rebellion.  
  
And Grayson has just left a brothel with her.  
  
In naught but little more than his underclothes.  
  
Something dark and ugly spikes through Isabeau’s chest, something she hasn’t felt since she was a very, very little girl and learned that Alastair enjoyed doing fun things with people that weren’t her: Jealousy.  
  
 _What the hell is going on here?_  
  
Once they’ve left, she goes into the brothel and sniffs around. She finds absinthe and a used glass, and Grayson’s armor and other uniform trappings. One glass suggests one drinker, but Isabeau is overtaken with an image of Grayson sitting at a stool with that woman, drinking with her; Grayson did not drink often with Isabeau, and when he did he restrained himself out of ‘professionalism’.  
  
 _What is he doing?_  
  
Isabeau pokes around the brothel and finds no one around. It is, unquestionably, a brothel; she finds discarded clothing, stained mattresses and dirty books and pictures. And she cannot help but think, _Grayson was here with a woman._  
  
There’s nothing more to be seen, and she needs to report back to Westminster before they think she’s followed Grayson in his madness. She casts a glance at the absinthe on the counter before she leaves, and tries not to think of Grayson sitting next to that woman, imbibing with her, talking with her.  
  
For years Isabeau has thrown lures, testing the waters, trying to see how Grayson reacts. “Will there ever be a time when you heed my advice?” is met with “You know the answer to that question, but you would have to obtain father's blessing first.” And sometimes Isabeau thinks she’s seen _something_ a spark of interest, of heat, of moments when Grayson looks at her and sees a woman instead of the young girl he’d trained for so long. The jokes about how old and weak he was, she realizes, may have worked against her by reminding him of their significant difference in age (in literal years and physical ones).  
  
Perhaps in this stranger he sees a woman instead of a girl.  
  
Perhaps they’re closer in physical age than he and Isabeau are.  
  
Perhaps…  
  
Isabeau returns to Westminster and does not make any mention of seeing Grayson with a Rebel woman. Whatever he suspicions are, she doesn’t want to set fire to the damn ship before she knows if it’s going to truly sink or not.  
  
But she does not sleep that night.  
  
Isabeau’s mind conjures uncomfortable pictures that flash behind her closed eyes: Grayson, in bed with the woman, undressing her, kissing her neck, running his hands over her breasts and between her legs. Isabeau pictures the Rebel woman on his lap, riding him, sliding her hands through his hair and kissing him deeply.  
  
She pictures them doing the same things she’s dreamt of countless times in the last two-hundred years, and she wants to _scream_.  
  
 _I will get to the bottom of this,_ Isabeau thinks, trying to use her anger to push the images from her mind. _I will know what he’s up to._  
  
 _I swear it._  
  
-End


End file.
